Kakurete Iru
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Tatsuha and his brother were the best of friends. But when his brother comes back from America, has Yuki changed forever?


Disclaimer: Gravitation's not mine. End of story.  
  
"...Oh, you know Ni-chan will never leave you, Tat-chan. Never...I promise," his warm voice assured me.  
  
I promise.  
  
You promised me, Yuki Ni-chan...  
  
Kakurete Iru. (Hiding.)  
by Yui Miyamoto  
  
  
Tugging on my ni-chan's pajama top, I sleepily rubbed my eyes. "Ni-chan? Ni-chan?"  
Sighing, he sat up from his bed and put on the light. "What happened, Tat-chan?"  
He smiled and carried me to his lap. Putting on his glasses, he asked again, "What happened?"  
"I had a bad dream." I answered while hugging the teddy bear I had always brought with me everywhere.  
"What kind of bad dream?" He began running his fingers through my hair. Closing his eyes a bit, he consoled, "Tell Ni-chan all about it."  
"I had a nightmare and you were in it. You were running away from me as a joke. You kept on laughing and running further and further away. When I was going to catch your hand, you disappeared with a frown on your face." I buried my face in his chest. "Don't ever leave me like that Ni-chan. Never!"  
He hugged me. "Is that all? Oh, you know Ni-chan will never leave you, Tat-chan. Never...I promise."  
"Promise?" I held up my pinky to make it real.  
He put his pinky into my small one. "Sealed."  
  
The next day...  
"Okay, let's play hide-and-seek! Okay, Ni-chan?" I laughed while pulling on his sleeve.  
  
I always seemed to pull on his clothing...  
  
"Okay, Tat-chan. I'll be it!" He ran to the backyard with my hand firmly in his own. "I'll count on the huge sakura tree and you hide."  
I nodded happily as he let go to go over to the sakura tree.  
Loudly, he counted, "1...2...3..."  
Like any other small child, I looked for a well-hidden place to make it hard for the seeker to them. And there was a small patch in the bushes in the garden that I barely fit into.   
"...9...10! Okay, I'm coming!" Yuki Ni-chan looked about the garden until he was about to give up saying, "Oh, I don't know where he is!"  
Then, he began to cry crocodile tears that I didn't know at the time.  
"Ni-chan?" I came out slowly from the little niche.  
"Gotcha!" He hugged me and swung me in the air.   
"You cheated!" I shouted in protest. "I thought you were crying!"  
He stopped to put me down and sat down to look at me. "You thought I was really crying?"  
"Yes, Ni-chan." I pouted. "I don't want to make you cry."  
I hugged him. "Not my ni-chan..."  
Patting my hair and wrapping his arms around me he answered back, "Me neither."  
With uncertainty, he blurted, "Remember that."  
A servant called for Ni-chan. "Your father is calling you!"  
  
That night, Ni-chan came into my room and sat on my bed. Patting my head sadly, he said, "I have something to tell you Tatsuha."  
  
Oh no. Whenever he said my full name, it was always something bad or serious that I didn't want to hear...  
  
"Yes, Ni-chan?" I replied with a gulp.  
Looking away, he hugged me. "I'm going to America tomorrow."  
Huh?  
  
It didn't hit me until I realized that America wasn't just around Kyoto, but a whole different country and continent.  
  
"No no no!" I began to burst into tears and gripped his pajamas. "You can't go. Tat-chan has to go too!"  
He closed his eyes painfully and tried not to cry. "No, Tat-chan cannot come with me."  
"Demo, doushite?"  
He sighed and started to hold me closer to him while rubbing my back. In a low voice, he said, "I have to study there for a while because papa said so. Only I can go."  
  
I couldn't understand and I remember thinking, "But why? Why can't I stay with Ni-chan?"  
  
That night, I cried and I fell asleep in tears being hugged by my Ni-chan who was leaning on the wall.  
  
"You know Ni-chan will always love you, Tat-chan." He smiled and kissed my cheek. "Don't worry."  
Then, I waved goodbye. "Bye bye!!!"  
  
I didn't want him to go...  
  
It was like that dream...  
  
I wish I knew then what I knew now...  
  
  
Months later...  
"Tatsu-kun!" my older sister said. "Yuki's coming today!"  
But she didn't have to tell me. I had waited all this time ever since he had left. I had missed him SO MUCH!  
Excited beyond belief, I ran out of the door and ran into the airport.  
"Young master Tatsuha!!!" the servants called.  
When I turned the corner and saw him, I ran to him, he walked passed me without so much as a second glance.  
  
No one has ever broken my heart like that...and never will...  
I think that's I remembered this scene so clearly...  
  
In the car, he held a scary look in his eyes full of fear and coldness. He was the opposite of what he used to be.   
Taking the chance, I tugged on his sleeve for old times sake. "Ni-chan? Ni-chan?"  
Slowly turning his head, he hissed, "Be quiet."  
  
And I never went near him ever again.  
  
I watched my brother go about the house like an outsider. He walked inside and outside his room with nothing but books for companions.   
Well, if he read a lot before, he swamped himself with them now. No one talked to him.  
His change had shocked everyone except my parents.  
  
I wish someone had told me at that time.  
  
One day, unable to take it anymore, unable to stand my ni-chan not being his 'normal self', this four-year-old shouted at the blond-haired boy that walked past him in the hall. "Where did you hide him? Where did you hide my Ni-chan?!"  
He stopped and slowly turned his head to me. His chin lifted up and smiled with an evil smirk. "Heh."  
Crying, I held my hands in fists. "Ni-chan? Where did you go?!"  
Running all over the house, I tumbled and scraped myself looking in every room going mad. "Where did you go?!  
  
"Where did you go?! Where did you go?!" Stopping in the garden to remember where he last held me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "NI-CHAN DOKO NI IKU NO?!?!"  
  
Then, the one that had called himself Yuki Eiri instead of his real name as the heir to the Uesugi family line came up to me. Wrapping his arms carefully around me. He embraced me warmly.  
Yuki ni-chan fell to his knees and began to cry. "I'm sorry I made you cry, my Tat-chan."  
Hugging me even tighter, he whispered through his tears, "He died in America."  
I shook my head. "You're not making sense. I don't understand. You're right in front of me."  
For a while, he cried and cried with his arms still around me and his knees digging into the grass until he made an imprint of himself there.  
"What I meant..." he whispered softly, "...was that I can't be the way I used to be."  
"Why, Yuki Ni-chan?"  
"I can't tell you why." Crying harder and his sobs growing louder, he again repeated. "I...can't tell...you why...right now."  
  
When I was thirteen, on a stormy night, Yuki Ni-chan came into my room and sat down on the bed with his legs crossed. "Now is the time."  
He then explained why he acted the way he did all these years: He had killed a man that he had loved...  
  
And then, everything became perfectly clear. It made sense to me know and I began to sob a little.  
Becoming the small kid I was once, I hugged my Ni-chan. Shaking my head, I said, "You came back, Ni-chan."  
He cried a little. "..."  
"You kept your promise, Ni-chan."  
Then, he swapped me on the head. "Now don't get all mushy on me."  
  
Through all these years, it was the first time I saw him laugh through all his tears...  
  
"Hey you!" Ni-chan bonked my head as he put a cigarette into his mouth.   
"What are you thinking about?" Shuichi-san asked me as he pounced on the couch right next to me.  
I shook my head and smiled while looking at the rain. "Rainy days always bring back happy memories."  
Shuichi nodded. "Ah."  
Ni-chan lifted up his head and took a puff of his cigarette while happily smirking.  
  
As I looked at both of them, I knew why I had accepted their relationship. Ni-chan was smiling like the way he used to because of Shuichi...  
  
  
My real Ni-chan had come back to me.   
  
He wasn't dead at all...  
  
...just hiding all these years.  
  
---  
Author's note: It's different, ne?   
I wanted to do something from a different angle other than love.  
  
-yui 


End file.
